mario essay

Mario, Everyman

It’s his profound average-ness that makes the classic Nintendo character so special.

In what’s become one of the more iconic stories from video-game history, everyone’s favorite Italian plumber was almost named “Jumpman.” Minoru Arakawa, the first president of Nintendo of America, had clashed with the company’s landlord over several months of unpaid rent. Recounting the tussle with his colleagues, Arakawa reportedly joked that their irascible landlord bore some resemblance to the protagonist of the company’s latest arcade game, Donkey Kong . So first in office lore, and then in subsequent games, “Jumpman” was rechristened in honor of their landlord’s given name: Mario.

• Why We Love Mario
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Mario’s miraculous evolution from office joke to cultural phenomenon has paralleled the development of video games as a creative medium. So it’s worth asking, 30 years after the debut of Super Mario, why and how Mario commands the kind of cultural influence he does. The simplest but least gratifying explanation is simply Mario’s popularity: As of 2015, the character has been featured in more than 116 distinct titles (not counting remakes and re-releases), with over 220 million copies sold. Still, other franchises have sold in similar numbers yet their characters cannot hope to match Mario’s cultural power; sales alone can’t explain Mario’s privileged place in the pantheon of video-game characters.

More important is the immense range of references to Mario in games and other media. When Jonathan Blow designed Braid , his artful deconstruction of the video-game protagonist, he chose Mario—single-minded, hopelessly devoted Mario—as his referent. And though the visual artist Cory Arcangel could have hacked virtually any ‘80s game cartridge, he chose Super Mario Bros. as the basis for his famous image-generator Super Mario Clouds , now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Impressive though these statistics and litany of allusions are, they can at most establish the truth of Mario’s popularity. Pressed to explain “why?,” they fail to yield compelling answers. Why should Mario, an “average Joe” if there ever was one, have achieved greater fame than Donkey Kong, the eponymous antagonist in Mario’s debut? How is it that Mario, whose vocational history (plumbing, carpentry, sanitation, etc.) hardly lends itself to world-saving antics, has established himself as the spokesman for an entire medium?

The “secret” to Mario’s popularity lies in his profound average-ness, which allows him to easily adapt to virtually any context. More than once, I’ve heard Mario referred to as a video-game “Ur-Symbol.” This prefix isn’t idle, and helps explain why Mario first garnered and has maintained such cultural power.

Depending on what etymology you accept, “Ur-” is derived from the Sumerian metropolis of the same name, whose recurrent appearance in Western philosophy testifies to the ancient city’s central role in European myth-making, as well as its tremendous conceptual flexibility. When Hegel laid out his teleology of human civilization, he modeled history as a Western tide that originated in the “Near East” but settled on the shores of Europe—Ur to Rome, in other words. The appeal of Ur, in this sense, lies in its evocation of a primal moment, distant enough to be irrefutable but still capable of relevance in changing cultural contexts.

Paradoxically, the Ur-symbol is both eternal and protean. It can be assigned a variety of traits without losing its distinctness. Its qualities are not internal, but external: It means what we need it to. The most famous manifestation of the Ur-symbol is likely the image of Jesus Christ, which has proved an endlessly adaptable anchor of an imagined spiritual community. In his own way, Mario has become a gaming Ur-symbol: His continued relevance through nearly every major paradigm shift in the medium’s history—arcade to console, two dimensions to three, subcultural hobby to ubiquitous pastime—attests to Mario’s unparalleled ability to remain relevant in an ever more heterogeneous community of players and games.

Consider the cast of recurring characters—Peach, Luigi, Bowser, etc.—that accompany (or antagonize) Mario in games set in the Mushroom Kingdom. Though many have starred in their own titles, the identity of each is typically constructed in terms of their relationship to Mario: Luigi is Mario’s brother, Peach, Mario’s lover, Wario, Mario’s anti-hero, and so on. When we call supporting characters’ own titles spin-offs, we acknowledge that there’s something off which they are spinning: that something is, of course, Mario.

In this sense, social life in the Mushroom Kingdom is centered on and around Mario. By extension, the narratives derived from these relations can never escape Mario’s influence, whether or not he is present. And because of the center-periphery relationship between Mario and his acquaintances, games ( WarioWare, Inc. , Luigi’s Mansion , etc.) that center on any other character than Mario inevitably have a sense of novelty about them.

It’s no surprise, then, that Mario is nearly always the “default” in games that offer multiple playable characters. On the character selection screen of each iteration of Mario Kart , Mario Party , and Super Smash Bros. , Mario occupies the first (that is, top left) position in the character grid. Moreover, in games that offer differing stats and abilities for their characters, Mario is nearly always the “standard” character—no particular strengths, but no glaring weaknesses either. When in Mario Kart Toad is labeled as “light” and Bowser as “heavy,” it’s the regulatory presence of oh-so-normal Mario that makes such value judgments possible.

Mario’s cardinal trait is simply his “default-ness.” Other characters are inevitably judged on Mario’s terms, and some of their otherness is simply that they are not Mario. The process of establishing their own identities depends, in part, on making it clear that they are not Mario. At the same time, this opens up tremendous flexibility for Mario in terms of the identities he can assume. Over time, this has enabled Mario to pursue a peripatetic vocational itinerary, changing careers like the rest of us change clothes. When other characters are “marked” by the fact that they are not Mario, then Mario himself may be “marked” in any number of ways—Paper Mario, Dr. Mario, Baby Mario ... the list goes on. Perhaps for that reason, Mario has been able to bear the ideas, dreams, and criticisms of countless designers, writers, and players. Perhaps for that reason, he is gaming’s only Ur-symbol.

This is not, however, to discount the role that Mario’s social normativity—a white, straight, middle-class, salt-of-the-earth working man—has played in establishing his place atop the hierarchy of game characters. It is no coincidence that Mario looks like he could belong to one of the demographics that the game industry has served most closely. Books could be written about how Mario, intentionally or no, has reflected and participated in debates over the political values embedded in games and gaming culture.

If that seems a bit unfair to poor Mario, who was never meant as a political statement (except, perhaps, in his turn as a semi-willing ecological activist in 2002’s Super Mario Sunshine ), I am surely sympathetic. Realistically, Mario’s race and gender have more to do with the technical challenges designers faced in the early 1980s than with any conspiratorial marketing ploy. Yet to have a legacy is to outlive one’s best and worst intentions. This is the nature of symbols, especially Ur-symbols, which are defined by their capacity to outlive and transcend their “originary” meanings. How else can something so “old” perpetually seem so “new”?

The point isn’t that games need a spokesperson who represents the diversity of the gaming populace (such a spokesperson would surely be impossible), or that Nintendo should be shamed for decisions made so long so, back when the company could barely pay its rent. Rather, it’s that if we have accepted Mario as the putative social and formal center of gaming’s most iconic franchise, then we players also inhabit his periphery at least as much as Nintendo’s other characters do. Our “otherness” is simply that we are not Mario.

As players, writers, and fans we all have our claim to him, at least as much as he has a claim on us (just as Jesus, or even Ur, may still matter for those who believe they do). What we know and say about Mario is a measure of what we know of the “other” in ourselves. The diversity of ideas that emerge from Mario speak to our desire to make meanings of his image, eternal and protean, like that mythic capital of an imagined past. To Ur, of course, is human.

Hegel thought as much with his notion of “Urteil,” a concentration of meanings bound within an object that may be teased out over time. These meanings, though, exist sui generis : It is the beholder’s job to reveal them, like Michelangelo seeing his angels trapped in marble. Yet Hegel, in some ways, misstates the truth: The meanings have always been our own. The myth of Ur was always already an image of something lost, mediated not only by the passing of time but by the changing needs of its beholders. Myth, then and now, needs to be animated to be meaningful. Meaning, in other words, needs a player. Mario means nothing until he’s in our hands, wielded and wound up through controllers and keyboards. He’s any man, he’s every man; he’s no man at all.

The Origins & History Of Mario [Geek History Lessons]

An Italian plumber created by a Japanese artist somehow became one of the most recognizable characters on earth. Featured in over 100 games, it's hard to imagine Nintendo or even video games without this mustachioed man in red. But where did he come from? Our story begins in the early 1980's with a struggling card and toy company - Nintendo.

An Italian plumber created by a Japanese artist somehow became one of the most recognizable characters on earth. Featured in over 100 games, it's hard to imagine Nintendo or even video games without this mustachioed man in red. But where did he come from?

Our story begins in the early 1980's with a struggling card and toy company – Nintendo – trying to break into a then-expanding market – arcade games. The company's few attempts at making games were mixed at best, and a game called Radar Scope barely sold at all – leaving Nintendo with empty cabinets in need of a new game.

Looking to try something new, Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi approached an artist named Shigeru Miyamoto – who until then worked on art for Nintendo's games – and asked him to design a game for the cabinets. Miyamoto was not a programmer, and thought of a story before starting work on gameplay – perhaps the first time this has happened in the history of video games.

1981: Donkey Kong

The ultimate result was Donkey Kong, a love triangle between a man, his pet gorilla and his girlfriend.

The game, while probably not the first platformer, defined the platform genre with its main character: "Jump Man". He could move left and right, climb ladders and jump – over obstacles or from one platform to the next. It was very different from major video games of the time.

So different, in fact, that when the game arrived at Nintendo's American headquarters near Seattle, WA, the team didn't really like it and though it wouldn't catch on. They were wrong, of course: the game was a huge success.

While Nintendo of America was working on distributing the game, the owner of their warehouse headquarters showed up demanding the rent, which was late. That landlord's name? Mario . The staff jokingly started calling Jumpman Mario, earning him a nickname. It eventually became his actual name.

As for Miyamoto - he went on to design most of your childhood. He created the Legend of Zelda series, Star Fox, Pikmin and Wii Sports/Play/Fit/etc, just to name a few.

1983: Mario Bros

Two years later Miyamoto, after working on a variety of games including two sequels to Donkey Kong, designed a two-play arcade game featuring Mario. The game, set in a the myriad of pipes beneath New York City, is the first to feature Mario's brother, Luigi. It's also the first game in which Mario cannot die by falling, the first of many super-human powers he would eventually acquire.

Even if you've never played this game you're probably familiar with it. Its entirety is included in Super Mario Bros 3 and a few other games.

1985: Super Mario Brothers

You know this game. You've played this game. To this day its music is probably the most recognizable of any video game ever, and the first level was many people's introduction to console gaming itself.

Looking at the Mario games that preceded this one, it's not hard to understand what made Super Mario Bros the best selling video game of all time. There are 24 levels, each of them far larger than all of the spaces that made up Donkey Kong and Mario Bros combined. There are powerups. Mario can grow bigger with a mushroom and shoot fireballs with a flower. And there is the now-standard left-to-right side scrolling that defined platformers for a decade, and still defines many today.

Two Sequels

There were two direct sequels to this game, both named Super Mario Bros 2. The Japanese version – released in 1986 – was very similar to the first Super Mario Bros:

As you can tell, it was hard. So hard, in fact, Nintendo decided American gamers wouldn't enjoy it (they didn't even get a chance to play it until it was released as part of Super Mario All Stars in 1993).

The sequel released in America was based on another game – Doku Doku Panic – which itself was developed to be Super Mario Bros 2 before it was scrapped. It was very different than the first Super Mario, and released in 1988:

1988: Super Mario 3

Fans disappointed with Super Mario Bros 2 had no cause to worry - Super Mario Bros 3 featured controls similar to the original game. That's not to say it was a copy. No, Super Mario Bros 3 was the first Mario game to feature a world map and inventory. It also added several new powerups.

The gameplay was non-linear, to an extent: some levels could be skipped if the player wanted, depending on the map layout. This game is considered by many (including this reporter) to be one of the greatest games of all time.

1990: Super Mario World

In 1990 Nintendo put out a new console, and also released the biggest Mario game yet - Super Mario World. This game introduced Yoshi, Mario's beloved dinosaur friend, and for the first time included levels with multiple solutions.

It was a great showcase for what the Super Nintendo was capable of, yes, but it was also a great game in and of itself. It was also the last major console sidescroller to star Mario until New Super Mario Bros Wii came along in 2009 nearly 20 years later.

1995: Super Mario 64

The next generation of consoles called for a different sort of Mario game altogether, and Super Mario 64 delivered. This game was 3D, and that meant one thing - exploration. Unlike previous Mario games, largely a finish-the-level affair, Super Mario 64 offered many different tasks inside each level:

The game set the standards for the 3D era of platforming, both in terms of camera management and objectives.

Super Mario Galaxy, released 12 years later, is very similar to Super Mario 64 in many ways.

Other Games

This is, of course, only a piece of Mario's history. I didn't mention a single game for portable systems, Mario's taken on a variety of different careers besides platforming - a doctor in puzzle game Dr. Mario, a race-car driver in Mario Kart, and a fighter in Super Smash Bros. He is the star of RPGs, the host of party games and an occasional athlete. It would be impossible to outline every Mario game in a single article, but the above Mario games all helped make Mario the memorable character he is today.

There are probably hundreds of fan-made Mario games out there at this point. Super Mario War is my favorite, though the Portal-inspired Mari0 and Super Mario Brothers X are both up there.

I grew up with Mario, to the point of obsession according to some of my family, so obviously I'd love to learn more about the character. Do you know any Mario history or trivia you'd like to share? Put it in the comments below, along with any memories you might have from these games.

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35 Thoughts About Mario on Super Mario’s 35th Anniversary

Insights and observations about Super Mario, what he means to video game culture and why he remains popular today.

By Stephen Totilo

Almost exactly 35 years ago, Super Mario Bros., the iconic video game from Nintendo, debuted — making a high-jumping plumber named Mario the Japanese video game company’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse.

Back in 1985, Super Mario Bros. was revelatory. The game, which popularized Nintendo’s first home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, played like a challenging, dreamlike cartoon that scrolled across a TV screen. Players controlled Mario, making him run, jump or sometimes swim through levels filled with giant mushrooms, menacing turtles and other strange obstacles. It was a tough game, but not too tough to discourage its avid players from giving it another try. And another. And another.

A sequel (which has its own fascinating history) followed. And another. And another.

The latest Mario game, Super Mario Bros. 35, which was released on Thursday for the Nintendo Switch, lets 35 people play the original Super Mario Bros. simultaneously, each vying to be the last Mario standing. It’s sort of Super Mario meets Fortnite.

Here are 35 things to consider about the overachieving plumber.

1. First, it is Super Mario Bros. that’s 35, not Mario. He’s 39. Mario debuted in 1981 in another famous Nintendo game, Donkey Kong, in which he runs up a series of girders, jumps over barrels and climbs ladders to rescue a woman kidnapped by a giant ape.

2. In the early years of video games, characters were defined less by who they were than by what they could do. Pac-Man gobbled dots and chased, or was chased by, ghosts. Sonic ran fast. Mario jumped. In fact, before the creators of Donkey Kong called him Mario, they called him “jumpman.”

3. Mario is so famous that even his brother, Luigi (who was playable in Super Mario Bros. in two-player mode), is a superstar. Luigi has more personality; he’s a nervous worrier and an underdog in the shadow of his famous sibling. Nintendo marketed 2013 as the Year Of Luigi. Did you celebrate?

4. It’s unclear what Mario’s last name is. Sometimes Nintendo officials have said it is Mario (hence Mario and Luigi being the “Mario Bros.”), which would make him Mario Mario. Other times they’ve said he doesn’t have one.

5. There’s also Wario, a sort of evil Mario, relation unknown. He has starred in over a dozen games, like Wario Land and WarioWare.

6. There’s even a Waluigi. He’s starred in nothing.

7. As modern games rely less on mascot characters, Mario stands out as a relic. Major video games are still popular because of what you do in them, but something like Fortnite doesn’t tie its core actions to a singular iconic character.

8. Even Nintendo doesn’t make many characters these days. They’re busy capitalizing on old ones. In fact, they’re branching Mario out to animated movies and theme parks backed by Universal Studios .

9. The Super Mario Bros. theme music, from the composer Koji Kondo, might be the most recognizable tune in gaming. Doo-doot-doo da-doot doo!

10. The essence of the entire Super Mario Bros. gaming experience can be understood through the arc of a jump: the ascent for discovery, the descent for conquest. The original game’s first delightful discovery comes in its opening seconds, when the player makes Mario jump and bonk his head into a floating block. A mushroom with the power to make Mario bigger pops out. And when Mario first encounters some waddling enemies, he can only defeat them by jumping onto them.

11. Mario’s reputation as an enthusiastic jumper has allowed Nintendo to morph him into an avatar of exuberance. He stars in a host of spinoff games, each with a cartoonish approach to its genre. Mario Kart is a racing game that lets you toss banana peels onto the track. Mario Tennis is supercharged tennis. You can guess how Super Mario Party goes.

12. There’s even a line of Mario games involving over-the-top takes on the Olympics. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, released in 2019, sees Mario and pals compete in exaggerated contests for an Olympics that was postponed as a result of the pandemic .

13. The colorful, happy vibe of Mario games has sometimes put Nintendo out of step with gaming trends. In 2003, the hottest gaming franchise was Grand Theft Auto, which gave players the ability to steal cars and kill just about anyone, including prostitutes. Cue George Harrison, a former executive at Nintendo, awkwardly defending his brand at a news conference: “Mario will never start shooting hookers.”

14. Mario’s cheerfulness remains irrepressible. These days, Mario and Grand Theft Auto can sit side-by-side in their popularity.

15. Mario’s superb strangeness also survives. The initial dreamlike quality of his game worlds extends to modern Mario sequels in which, say, he can toss his hat onto a dinosaur and possess it.

16. If you think this Mario stuff is bizarre, you’re in good company. In 2012, a New York Times copy editor asked me to clarify why Super Mario collects coins . To… get them? To score a free life after every 100th coin? Because the designers put the coins in the games to guide players through the levels?

17. The original Super Mario Bros. contains what might be the most famous video game shortcut: an intentional exploit in which Mario can break through the ceiling of the game’s first underground level and enter pipes that lead to later portions of the game. That shortcut epitomizes one of gaming’s core truths, whether you play God of War or Candy Crush: Players always seek ways to beat the system.

18. There are two major styles of Mario games. The so-called 2-D games feature a Mario who runs across the screen from left to right. The revolutionary 1996 game Super Mario 64 moved the series into three dimensions and brought much of the video game industry with it. (In Mario 64, players see Mario from behind as he runs ahead.) Nintendo’s big September release — Super Mario 3D All-Stars, for Switch — is a compilation of Mario 64 and two 3-D successors: Super Mario Sunshine, from 2002, and Super Mario Galaxy, from 2007.

19. Mario game designers rarely whiff. The closest to disaster they’ve come is Super Mario Sunshine, which saddles Mario with a backpack that shoots water. It’s OK.

20. Super Mario Galaxy is divine. Its main idea: setting Mario’s adventures on small, spherical worlds and letting Mario leap or fly from one to the next.

21. Mario popularized 3-D gaming but also repopularized 2-D gaming. In 2006, Nintendo broke a 16-year dry spell of 2-D Marios with the release of New Super Mario Bros. Its popularity defied the medium’s conventional wisdom that artistic progress should be synchronized with technological advances.

22. Three decades of Mario sequels exemplify how video games have generally gotten easier or how they’re now designed to better respect a player’s time. The early games severely limited Mario’s number of lives — or the number of chances players had to retry a level. Newer Mario releases make it easier to stock up on extra tries. Super Mario Odyssey, released in 2017, can’t even trigger a Game Over. That means that even when Mario loses all his lives, players can pick up where they left off, without a significant penalty.

23. Earlier, Super Mario Galaxy offered another innovation in game difficulty: a “co-star” mode that let a second player use a second controller to assist the main player.

24. Like nothing else in gaming, the Mario franchise embodies the tension between corporate ownership and fandom. Fans have created countless unofficial Mario games, many of them then stomped out of existence by Nintendo’s lawyers .

25. If you can’t sue them, sell them something. In 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker, which lets players create — but not own — their own 2-D Mario levels.

26. Even Nintendo recreates classic Super Mario Bros. sequences. Their best riff might be a circular version of Super Mario Bros.’ first level, offered in WarioWare: Twisted, in 2004.

27. Mario games have helped popularize the grass-roots speedrunning scene, in which skilled players use every trick imaginable to complete games as quickly as possible. Super Mario Bros. runs done in under five minutes are dazzling sprints of near-death success. New records are set by the hundredth of a second .

28. Mario games have inspired the charming Super Mario Broth, a Twitter feed of Mario obscurities that recently revealed a detail about Mario’s irises .

29. Some super fans have proposed that all Mario games exist on one narrative timeline . It doesn’t quite work out.

30. Some Mario games are a little retrograde. The thin plots of all three Mario games in the new 3D All-Stars collection, for example, feature Mario rescuing a kidnapped Princess Peach.

31. Princess Peach has been a protagonist at times, with mixed results. She was a playable character in Super Mario Bros. 2, in 1988, and in the soon-to-be-remade Super Mario 3D World. Nintendo gave her a starring role in 2005 in Super Princess Peach, in which she rescues a kidnapped Mario. Her powers in that game? Her mood swings. Players can make her angry in order to surround her in obstacle-clearing flames and make her cry in order to use her gushing tears to make plants grow.

32. Mario games highlight the industry’s preservation problems. Games run on hardware that often becomes obsolete in a decade, making it hard to play the classics. While fans and preservationists collect and share ripped copies, copyright holders wield the power on whether or not to ensure games remain accessible. When it comes to that original Super Mario Bros., Nintendo does the work to make sure it runs on its newest devices and enthusiastically sells it to each new generation of customers.

33. On the other hand, Nintendo first sold Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube, which ceased production in 2007. That game also ran on the Wii, which was retired around 2012. Since then, no new video game hardware could play Sunshine until this month’s 3D All-Stars collection on the Switch. If major Mario games can be so inaccessible, imagine how quickly lesser-known games disappear.

34. Nintendo is a popular company but also a weird one, known for being an engine of brilliant creativity and odd policies. Exhibit #1452 (probably): Nintendo says it will only sell its new collection of 3-D Mario games (as well as Super Mario Bros. 35) until March 31.

35. And finally: Mario’s best jump? I nominate the triple jump from Super Mario 64 — a trio of high-arc leaps, accompanied by three giddy yelps. That might be the best thing in gaming ever.

Inside the World of Video Games

What to Play Next?: For inspiration, read what our critics thought about the newest titles , as well as which games our journalists have been enjoying .

Influencers Dying to Go Viral:  The horror video game Content Warning, a surprise hit , lets players microdose as momentary celebrities on the fictional website SpookTube.

No Rest for the Wicked:  The studio behind Ori and the Blind Forest has pivoted into dark fantasy , inspired by Dark Souls, Diablo and “Game of Thrones.”

Difficult but Accessible: Games like Another Crab’s Treasure  are questioning whether fiendish challenges are an intrinsic feature of the Soulslike genre.

Vibrant African Myths: Tales of Kenzera: Zau  is both a paean to one son’s paternal memories and an engrossing Metroidvania, our critic says.

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Super Mario and Cultural Globalization

The 2020 Summer Olympics will be held in Japan.  And when the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, made this public at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he did so in an interesting way.   He was standing atop a giant “warp pipe” dressed as Super Mario.  I’m trying to imagine the U.S. equivalent.  Can you imagine the president of the United States standing atop the golden arches, dressed as Ronald McDonald, telling the world that we’d be hosting some international event?

Prime minister Abe was able to do this because Mario is a cultural icon recognized around the world.  That Italian-American plumber from Brooklyn created in Japan is truly a global citizen. The Economist recently published an essay on how Mario became known around the world.

Mario is a great example of a process sociologists call cultural globalization .  This is a more general social process whereby ideas , meanings , and values are shared on a global level in a way that intensifies social relations.  And Japan’s prime minister knew this.  Shinzo Abe didn’t dress as Mario to simply sell more Nintendo games.  I’m sure it didn’t hurt sales.  In fact, in the past decade alone, Super Mario may account for up to one third of the software sales by Nintendo.  More than 500 million copies of games in which Mario is featured circulate worldwide.  But, Japan selected Mario because he’s an illustration of technological and artistic innovations for which the Japanese economy is internationally known.  And beyond this, Mario is also an identity known around the world because of his simple association with the same human sentiment—joy.  He intensifies our connections to one another.  You can imagine people at the ceremony in Rio de Janeiro laughing along with audience members from different countries who might not speak the same language, but were able to point, smile, and share a moment together during the prime minister’s performance.  A short, pudgy, mustached, working-class, Italian-American character is a small representation of that shared sentiment and pursuit.  This intensification of human connection, however, comes at a cost.

Comments 27

Stephanie jessop — january 18, 2017.

Is Mario Italian-American? I always thought he was just Italian.

Dennis Conover — July 5, 2019

I didn't know Mario was a plumber.

Super Mario Bros-Xiaoyan Kong – NYU Gamers — October 1, 2019

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Super Mario bros essay

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Western Japaneseness. Intercultural Translations of Japan in Western Media

Juan Manuel Montoro

This chapter aims to explore how Japanese and Western cultures have simultaneously influenced a global cultural icon like Nintendo’s Super Mario video game series and the fictional world created around it. The methodology of this study focuses on a textual analysis of the design of characters, scenarios, and resources to be found in video games as well as analysis of media outsources like an American animated series and a Japanese animated film. Firstly, this paper examines the notion of Japaneseness and identifies three aspects of Japanese culture that appear as highlighted in Super Mario’s fictional world, especially if considered as opposed to Western traditions. These are: 1) the limited yet persistent presence of Japanese folk figures, 2) a centripetal hierarchy of constituents in the world-building going from an embracing environment to an embedded character, and 3) a tendency to use aesthetics that favor change and passion instead of mimetic representation. Finally, the cross-cultural analysis of transmedia texts, like the Japanese animated series and the American animated film, will show how each process of inter-semiotic translation, respectively, tends to reinforce or mitigate these three aspects of Japanese/Asian tradition. Keywords: Super Mario, Japanese video games, Nintendo.

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It is noticeably interesting to see how witty video games are, especially those that connote with a common thread, a story, the famous beginning, knot or catastrophe as Aristotle would call it and closure in Todorov's terms. This plot represented on boards and scenarios in which a video game like Mario Bros takes place, has allowed me to metaphorize about the subjects that make up the school and society itself. What I suggest here stems from a more elaborate interpretation that I have been associating withother investigations or articles on school, society, peace and the configuration of the political subject in the historical path of that school, while I have, off course, been a witness and participant of that context. Video games will serve as an example for me to dimension or characterize three subjects that metaphorically make up contemporary societies. Due to the fact that there is not a single andspeciallygenuine and superior idea of educating and learning, nor is there an unmistakable method, the teacher is nothing more than a conscious subject of his or her sensitive experience with the world. Th

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The role of women in games is changing, although the media and sometimes games designers have been slow to catch up with this. This paper argues that games are adopting a more gender-neutral approach and that in cases where this does not happen, players are taking matters into their own hands. Fan texts reappropriate the female in games to present a more playful aspect and the growing sociality of games, especially online games, means that designers are taking note where players find difficulty with gendered representations. At the same time the female gamer is becoming less of a trope as players accept more freely that men and women play a diverse selection of games that cannot be categorised by sex. Keywords: gender; online games; social communities; MMORPGs; game design

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In the following paper, the authors analyze the prevalence of princess culture in the literature, film, and visual culture of young people. The authors, an art educator, art historian, and professor of English literature, propose creative interventions through alternative resources and readings. Focusing on foundations of media studies and literature of Fairy-Tale Studies and girlhood studies, this interdisciplinary collaboration investigates complex creative predicaments of girlhood and princess media. Utilizing Princess Aurora and Sleeping Beauty as a case study and focal point, the authors discuss their collaborative arts research intended to explore problems and possibilities of princess culture.

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Dina Goldstein’s photographic series, Fallen Princesses, depicts Disney princesses as live women inserted intobleak, realistic situations. For example, observers see Jasmine on a Middle Eastern battlefield holding a machine gun with an oil well exploding in the background. These images have been an Internet sensation winning numerous awards and acclamations. Despite their entertainment value, they perform significant cultural work by problematizing princess culture in a variety of ways. Such images create incongruity by using shifts in depictions of race, class, and gendered appearances of princes and princesses. By juxtaposing idealized notions of Disney type princesses with bleak negative representations; these pictures create feminist perspectives through incongruities. Enjoyed by a broad cross section of the population, such images jar the audience into considering worlds beyond those idealized by Disney. This essay examines issues of race, class and gender in the juxtapositions and incongruities in several of these images. By identifying the visual rhetorical strategies present in these incongruities between idealizations in fairy tales and stark reality, this essay pinpoints multiple interpretations and the ways that those interpretations function to push the audience to accept feminist principles. Understanding how these conflicting messages have gained acceptance from both fairy tale fans and critics can expose rhetorical strategies that gain wide acceptance while engaging in somewhat caustic social criticism. In particular, a feminist Burkean analysis allows exploration of the ways that these incongruities crack open multiple and contradictory meanings within a text and how these meanings function for different audiences. This abstract is cited here: http://vitaminw.co/culture-society/fallen-princess-photo-feminist

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Mario, the Idea vs. Mario, the Man

Everyone knows Mario is cool as fuck. But who knows what he's thinking? Who knows why he crushes turtles? And why do we think of him as fondly as we think of the mythical (nonexistent?) Dr.Pepper? Perchance. I believe it was Kant who said "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." Mario exhibits experience by crushing turts all day, but he exhibits theory by stating "Let's-a go!" Keep it up, baby! When Mario leaves his place of safety to stomp a turty, he knows he may Die. And yet, for a man who can purchase lives with money, a life becomes a mere store of value. A tax that can be paid for, much as a rich man feels any law with a fine is a price. We think of Mario as a hero, but he is simply a one percenter of a more privileged variety. The lifekind. Perchance.

Chapter 2: Literacies at work, for fun, and at school

2.11 Mario Kart: Just a game or a way of life? (argument from experience)

English 102, february 2020.

Mario and Luigi have had a presence in my life   since 2009 when   Super Mario Bros   was released on   the Nintendo Wii.   At the time I was   8, and I had no idea how much I would fall in love with the game and   characters.   Growing up with the basic Nintendo Wii, games that involved Mario and the “gang” were always the most fun. My parents would all play with   us   and it was a great bonding experience for my family.    Mario Kart 8   has influenced my life since the start of my freshmen year   in college. My roommates and I bonded over Mario Kart. Our evenings   always involve a round of Grand Prix and can always continue for hours.   Mario Kart has continuously brought us joy and the sounds the characters make   allow us to get so wrapped   up   into the game   it has almost become an escape from the real world and all the stressors we encounter. My roommates and I tend to be blasting music and just focus on winning.   While I was thinking about some of the discourses I’m involved in, I realized some people have never had the privilege to play   Mario Kart 8 .    

A discourse is   how a group of people speak and or act in a certain situation.   The discourse in the Nintendo realm is understood by anyone who’s played any game by Nintendo.   Nintendo games are viewed as a stress reliever by most fans. Players play to have fun. Nintendo has   its   own discourse; however,   Mario   Kart 8   has its own discourse   as well.   Mario Kart has been   a part   of the Nintendo discourse since 1992 when it was first released.   When Mario Kart was introduced into the Nintendo realm, most of the discourse was the   same from previous Nintendo games. As the years pass and the more Mario Kart games get released, the larger the community gets.   While the Mario   Kart discourse grew,   the Nintendo discourse would grow with it.   People who only play   Mario Kart   tend to   investigate   other games made by Nintendo after playing.   Which, in turn,   enables the Nintendo community to increase in size.   Lifelong Nintendo fans also follow any new game   which   is being released so both discourses work hand in hand.    

For someone who has never played a video game, the language and discourse present   throughout   the game can easily confuse them.   Right off the bat, the menu   for   Mario   Kart is simple. It first asks how many players there are, if you want to play online,   or play wirelessly.  After you select what you want, it then shows the three   to four   types of “games” you can play.   If someone decides they want to play with just one player, they will be provided with four options to choose from. The choices are Grand Prix, Time Trails,   VS Race, and Battle. This is where it gets a little tricky with the language.   All the words they use make sense   and are straightforward; however, without knowing the rules or the context of how Mario Kart uses the words could be confusing. The textbook definition of Grand Prix is “any of a series of auto-racing or motorcycling contests forming part of a world championship series,”   and while this can be applied to the Mario Kart universe, there is a slight difference.   Grand Prix in   the   Mario Kart and Nintendo world means four races. There isn’t a championship   game at the end like the definition implies. Time Trials is just what it sounds like, competing in a timed race. You tend to compete   against   yourself   or   against a computer.   VS   Race   can be used with multiplayer or can be played by one person with other computers playing as well. Finally, Battle is one of my favorites. Battle is not a typical race like Grand Prix.   During   Battle, you have five   modes:   Balloon Battle, Bomb-omb   Blast, Renegade Roundup, Shine Thief, and Coin Runners.   All the modes are different but have the same core idea, to win.    

All the characters on   Mario Kart 8   are   characters from   previous Nintendo games   on   all   their platforms.   They all have a   storyline,   but they aren’t   referenced   in   Mario Kart   8.   Not knowing every character’s   story line is not a crucial part to the game.   Newer players to the Nintendo realm might not know all the characters and that’s okay but the storylines for the characters aren’t   important   for Mario Kart.   Most of the characters within the Nintendo world have their own game   which   explains their story   or the purpose of the game.   For someone who’s interested in learning the storyline for a specific character, they should   look into   playing one of the games that’s based around that character.   For example,   in   Super Mario Bros   the purpose of the game is to free Princess Peach   from the “enemy” Bowser.   Once you complete the game, Mario saves Princess Peach and Bowser   leaves.   

Every   character   has   unique characteristics to them.   For instance, Princess Peach only wears pink clothes and   many of   her things in Mario Kart 8 are pink. Another example is   Shy Guy. Shy Guy, also known as   ShyGuys,   is a common enemy for Mario and Luigi. They are found wearing masks, ultimately because they’re shy.   Shy Guy   has multiple versions due to being in so many Nintendo games. Each variation of Shy Guy has different tricks   and different colors. The original Shy Guy is red and has the basic   tricks but   going other colors have more “advanced” skills.   Each character also has their own discourse.   Shy Guy   makes very random noises throughout the game and his tone changes based   off   the situation he’s in.   Since Shy Guy wasn’t introduced into Mario games   until   Super Mario Bros. 2   came out in 1988, many have followed him since the first time he   appeared in another game.   Players have favorite characters based   off of   previous games or even rounds. My roommates and I   all like different characters for different reasons. For instance, I love   Tanooki   Mario, while one of my roommates loves Blue Shy   Guy. Our favorites   are based on previous games played, although we mainly play   Mario Kart 8 ,   not storylines.   

To further explain my   appreciation   for   Mario   Kart 8 , my roommates and I made a podcast.   The   podcast is linked   here:   https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-uikhk- d2a8e6?utm_campaign=i_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=i_share .   During the podcast, we discussed how we play, our   preferences   on characters,   and the   discourse   we use throughout the game.   The podcast helped organize my paper and help me get my argument across.   Presenting my multimodal helped me gauge how everyone in the class felt about my topic. I was able to ask the class some questions which helped me add   to my argument.    

To   conclude,   Mario Kart 8   and Nintendo has had   a tremendous impact   on my life. I   have never had to sit down and read the instructions on how to play any Nintendo game.   Every Nintendo   game has a tutorial of how to play   when you first start playing. For example, in   Super Mario Party   there is a tutorial on how to play the minigame before it   officially begins.   Another example is in the beginning of any Super Mario game, it shows you the storyline, the objectives and   how to play.   The discourse in Nintendo games vary in every game.   For instance, the discourse in   Animal Crossing   is different than in   Luigi’s Mansion.   The “slang” is completely   different   and they both occur in opposite settings.   Nintendo games are played across the world and the literacies that happen during different games can be used anywhere. While   recording my podcast, I did ask my roommates if they tend to   look into   other games made by Nintendo.   They both said they   investigate   other Nintendo games that have the similar gameplay.   While all Nintendo games aren’t the same, they all have the same goal, for their players to have   fun.     

Understanding Literacy in Our Lives by Sarah Ciha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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